


Things That Are Left Behind

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:10:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The things Argon missed most after leaving his home in Valinor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Are Left Behind

He missed the light, and the warmth, but then of course they all did. They sat around the fire with the cold green and red curtains of light dancing overhead, covering the stars, and yet they were as starved of light as they were of food. Their  _fëar_  were wasting from it, even as their bodies wasted with hunger, becoming frail and weak. Each night Arakáno stared resolutely into the flames, trying to let the scant warmth the fire provided seep into his skin, trying to fool himself into thinking that it was the light of Laurelin. The pretence never lasted long, for the cold was bone deep, draining, aggressive. Even when he shared a fur cloak with his sister or one of his brothers, even when they pressed close together to share each other’s warmth. Even then he felt cut off, isolated by the cold, alone in the great darkness.

He missed his brothers and sister, even though they were all about him. He missed Turukáno, whose eyes were hollow and dull and empty now, since Elenwë had been lost. He missed Findekáno’s laughter and quick smiles, and Irissë’s teasing, but their faces seemed set into solid determination now. Frozen, as if they dared not try to smile lest their resolve shatter, and themselves along with it. There was no room to make that mistake out here. (He wondered if he looked like that too. He supposed he probably did.)

Most of all though, he missed his mother. Her arms around him, when he had been small enough to be enveloped in them, and then when he was far too big for that but she held him anyway, held him so tight. She was light, life and warmth, her voice sweet and low in his ear. Each night Arakáno made an effort to recall the precise tone and timbre of her voice, before he fell asleep. Staying awake was not the hard part, for the cold and the gnawing hunger made sleep difficult anyway. But each night he found it more difficult to pin down her voice in his roiling, restless mind, bone-weary but at the same time almost feverishly active, unable to concentrate. Some nights he could not even get a firm grip on the memory of her voice, and those were the nights he had to bite down hard on his lip to stop a shuddering sob escaping him to wake the others in the tent. He had to believe he would see her again. He could do nothing else.

 ————

When he did see his mother again, Arakáno was waking in the gardens of Lórien, and her face was looking down from above in concern as the grey mist cleared from his eyes, his new body strange and clumsy and unfamiliar. She held him once more, calling him her little one, and he held her and sobbed like child in her arms. He wept for the ones who had died, but mostly for the ones that were still alive, and his own powerlessness to help them in whatever trials may come. His mother stroked his hair, whispering in his ear, telling him it would be all right, that he was safe now. That part at least was true. She told him that they would all be safe too, wherever they were, which they both knew was a lie.


End file.
